If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are a brave person. I have tried it but hasn't gone so well. I hope it works for you. You are going to save some serious scratch. I will have to learn. Mine is due and may try to squeeze one more year out of it.
You will have to post a tutorial. Can't wait so see the rest of the progress.

You are a brave person. I have tried it but hasn't gone so well. I hope it works for you. You are going to save some serious scratch. I will have to learn. Mine is due and may try to squeeze one more year out of it.
You will have to post a tutorial. Can't wait so see the rest of the progress.

What did you have problems with? I'm pretty much taking each seam apart and using that as a template, then sewing them...At least that's the plan...

This makes the piping really easy, and I picked up some double sided sewing tape..We shall see...

What did you have problems with? I'm pretty much taking each seam apart and using that as a template, then sewing them...At least that's the plan...

Back when I was in college, I used to do my own boat interiors and they came out pretty good. I wasn't doing anything too crazy or entering any shows, but it was fun for me. Just try to hide most of your seams and stay away from real intricate styles.

The one thing that I learned was you need a commercial grade sewing machine for the marine vinyl, I ate up four different standard home type sewing machines before I finally got access to a real commercial unit.

1st attempt, I tried to "fix" a few seams only making them much much much worse..

Parrot, don't try to "fix" seams, its a one way pass thru.

Mark the backside that you have up facing you with chalk or lightly with ball point pen (can cause big problems with ink bleed through on lighter colors), hand start your seam and go a nice constant speed and just follow your line. Let the machine do the work. I used to mark with a dashed line with white chalk.

And most of all, practice a bunch with just two pieces of vinyl until you get comfortable, you will need to get the muscle memory down first. I sat down at a machine about a year ago after not doing it for about 15 years, stunk at first, then picked it back up after about 20 minutes. So just start burning through some practice pieces and when you are tired, stop.

That's great advice for just about any involved project right there. I've screwed up more stuff and gotten injuries from pressing on when I should have walked away for a day. Put a drill right through my hand one time when I did this.